


It's Not Pain (It's Applause)

by mihrsuri



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Acting, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Child Abuse, Child Murder, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Other, jaskier is a sweetheart murder child, kindness in a horrible place, witcher hunger games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26696167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/pseuds/mihrsuri
Summary: It helps to go in clear eyed, at least for him but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. [Jaskier's Hunger Games]
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion/Other(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ruffboi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruffboi/gifts).



> Title from the Amazing Devil song Battle Cries.

From the first moment they call his name Jaskier knows what to do - he’s thought about it, of course he has - you have to and part of being a performer, of doing what he does is knowing that much more goes into the games than just being a killer or luck or strength. 

That it’s as much a role as any he has played himself. And so when they call his name Jaskier doesn’t fall. He slips into character, already Julian the charming young man who can charm as easily as he juggles and throws knives (”oh this? I picked it up in my travels” he says with an easy grin, tilting his head to just the right angle). 

He holds it after he gets on the train, comforts his fellow tribute because he can’t not, because it isn’t fair, none of this is fair (it’s awful, he knows that, he’s always known that, always wanted to change it even when they’ve tried to beat it out of him Jaskier can’t not be kind) and they both feel better, at least for a while. 

The capital is something else again but he knows the capital through performances and gigs and he knows how to unbutton his shirt, how to throw knives with a charming grace, how to wink at the audience. 

(He knows he is seventeen and this is wrong, just as much as it’s wrong that the District One girls have been honing this as a strategy for years, that the younger tributes aren’t safe, that Jaskier is sure there have been bids already). 

It helps to go in clear eyed, at least for him but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

He’s always been good with his words and he aces the interviews, makes sure to not stand out from the crowd with his scores but does enough to know there will be sponsors who will think him worth their money and he thinks about whether he truly can do this. 

But he has to. Jaskier knows that they tried not killing each other, tried killing themselves in the first few games but the Capital had made sure that no one would try that again. If I have no choice, Jaskier thinks as he rises up into the arena, let me play their games with dignity. With all the kindness I can give. I will still be a killer but I will not be their killer. 

The arena is all mountains and rock - there are small stunted trees and very little shade and Jaskier hates it immediately but he finds a haven near one of the hidden water sources - there’s a cave and a pool he can bathe in and water for drinking. 

Jaskier’s strip show with bathing nets him his first sponsors gifts (food, bedding, a stove that doesn’t require lighting a fire) and his morning dressing gets him a knife. By the end of the first day he has built himself a more secure shelter and a strategy. 

There’s a mess at the cornucopia but Jaskier returns with a set of truly lethal knives and throwing knives (and had he but known it, the respect and affection of the districts and the capital, though for different reasons - the capital because he was a pretty charming show, covered in blood and his shirt half in pieces and the districts because he had been kind, had been merciful even if he had dealt out death). 

(He comes out of the games never wanting to touch another knife again)

When he returns he finds a replacement shirt but it’s billowy and open necked and somehow Jaskier keeps it together. Has to keep it together. He should not have the indulgence of falling apart, not when the reason is that he killed, in self defence or no, he still killed. 

The girl and the boy from District One find him and if Jaskier hates it, hates everything about it, he knows how to play the game and they end up kissing - his knife at her throat and Garnet smirking as he pushes Jaskier against a rock. 

(The ratings go through the roof) 

”Please” Amethyst and Garnet both whisper and there’s a thousand unspoken things in that word because they can’t ask it, not out loud, not if they want their families to be safe but they know what is waiting for them if they win and neither of them want it. “Yes” Jaskier says, making it sound teasing but he can feel the relief in them and knows they know that he understands - that they realised too late that it wasn’t honour, it wasn’t brightness or service, it was just another way to be used, to be sacrificed as a capital pet and perhaps District One has prettier chains but they are still chains. 

They lay together one last time before Jaskier kills them and in the darkness the night before it’s something more. Something real, something gentle. He hopes it’s something for them to hold onto at least. 

(Later on his victory tour their families will press gratitude into his hands and he will never feel it is enough)

The final fight is in rain and mud and by the end Jaskier is scarred all over but it’s done. It’s done but it’s not over. 

They take away his scars and it feels wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

The victory tour is a blur but also far too clear. 

He has already heard from his mentor that people don’t remember the post games interview and recap but unfortunately Jaskier can remember every moment, even though he was playing Julian. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t making merry but he did have to watch this theatre of death and dying with himself at the centre. 

“Sacrifice is the nature of the games. I know all the tributes and districts understand that - we are honoured by it and I will always honour their memory in remembrance of that sacrifice and service - but obviously it won’t always be solemn! I’ll have fun with you all” 

Jaskier as Julian winks at the audience as they laugh and throw roses and feels sick but reminds himself that what the capital hears and what the districts hear is a very different thing - the capital thinks he is honouring them. 

It has nothing to do with them. He is honouring all the children who die, the children who tell themselves they are willing sacrifices so that other children might not die. All of them deserve to be honoured and remembered. All the children who come out of the games and grow up. 

The President smiles at him and it is a pleased smile and Jaskier breathes a sigh of relief that he had pulled this first part of his performance off. 

It is only the beginning. 

The victory tour is a blur and also far too clear in it’s intensity. They dress him in billowing silk shirts and tight purple breeches with soft leather boots and a doublet of gold and purple so that he looks like a bardic prince from an old story and give him knives to go with the gittern he has told them is his instrument of choice (Jaskier does not tell them about his lute because his lute is for him, is for the districts) and it’s all bleakly horrifically funny because really, this is the capitals idea of a performers life. 

He shakes hands, charms crowds, plays songs from each district, hugs children and the families of those he killed and those who died when he lived and somehow, somehow none of them blame him even though he blames himself. 

It’s Eist, the District Four victor who might be the only person that The Lioness (who Jaskier, with seventeen year old certainty thinks might be the most terrifying beauty of a person he has ever met and years later thinks the same with a fondness borne of friendship) has ever truly smiled at, who tells him what Victors have to do. 

“I knew, you know” he says to the man over terrible booze in his apartment. “Thank you for telling me, but I knew and I’ve prepared myself and you should worry about, perhaps you should worry about someone else who doesn’t know.” 

“I can worry about both” Eist says with a sad fond smile and some part of Jaskier recognises himself in Eist, at least a little. “I can tell you that you are allowed to need care and worry, just the same as you give to others and I can give you this terrible alcohol” 

As it turns out Jaskier pleases the President by offering his own first patron and it goes from there. He knows exactly what he has to do and he might as well set his own terms as much as he can. His clients don’t want rough, not like Calenthe’s or Yens (who want her to be rough with them) - they want devotion and worship and the illusion that he wants them and treasures their company. 

Jaskier does like people, that’s the worst thing. He always has and maybe that’s something he finds with Eist, who also genuinely likes people and charming them. When he first meets Geralt he thinks Geralt hates him for that. 

Geralt is considered the ideal District Two victor which means different things depending on who you talk to but Jaskier thinks means ‘honourable, stoic and unexpectedly kind’ because…Geralt made death beautiful, made it a dance but he never made anyone suffer, not when you looked at it. District Two shapes careers to see themselves as sacrifices, as honourable, as performing a service and that is monstrous in a different way but they have a support system that other districts do not. 

He finds Geralt listening to his songs one day and can’t help but introduce himself when he’s still dressed as Julian but he gives his name as Jaskier. Geralt grunts, but he stays and listens to Jaskier talk and play and seems to soften, at least a little. 

Yen is both harder and easier to know. So many people think they know Yen, the capital darling who seems to have embraced being a beautiful jewel of a courtesan who has made an art of pleasure and of power. And it’s true but it’s also not true. Not the whole of her story. 

Loving both of them comes slowly and then all at once.


End file.
